


Why did the chicken cross the road?

by plinys



Category: Alice Isn't Dead (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Misses Clause Challenge, POV First Person, transcript
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-08 19:47:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8858437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: Because the other side was the one place she'd felt like she'd belonged. Well, one of them. The other was beside you.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ectotherm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ectotherm/gifts).



Testing.

Testing.

One. 

Two. 

Three.

_ I think it’s on. _

I know. I was just. 

_ State your name for the record. _

This is Agent Alice [Last Name Retracted]. 

Employee Number: 2029437

Bay and Creek Special Operations Division. 

Reporting in on The Incident. 

Sector 45.81. 

Unit Code Alpha. 

_ Thank you. You may begin whenever you’re ready.  _

 

[bzzt]

 

If there was anywhere to start it would have to be the beginning. 

Not my beginning with Bay and Creek. 

Before that even.

 

[bzzt]

 

My mother says she could sense it when I was in the womb. 

That there was something not quite right about me. 

There was too much inside of me.

Those were the words she had used  _ too much _ . 

I heard that a lot when I was younger. 

That I asked too much.

That I worked too much.

That I was gone too much. 

_ Gone? _

 

[bzzt]

 

I was ten the first time I crossed to the other side.

Just slipped through the cracks.

It was a family vacation I think, a road trip. 

You know how those things are?

_ Agent [Last Name Retracted] please continue your record _ .  _ You know not to engage the proctor. _

Yes. 

Of course.

Of course you know. 

Rest stops are always the easiest places to crossover. I had been at one of them, waiting for my mother to come out of the bathroom, and I’d seen it. A flicker of something not exactly there, just past the dog run. 

And then I walked through. 

 

[bzzt]

 

I know you’re not to speak back.

But do you remember it?

The first time you crossed to the other side?

There weren’t monsters there my first time. 

Just the shadows. 

Endless shadows stretching out against the walls.

Yellow walls, crumbled down, surrounding the rest stop. 

Trapping us there.

It didn’t bother me that nobody else could see them. 

When my mother’s voice finally cut through all of the distance, her calling me back to the real world. To the world of people who could not see. 

I knew that I had been there. 

 

[bzzt]

 

I think that’s why I was recruited. 

I spent too long on the other side. 

I know my profile says  _ high risk _ . 

Close enough to fall. 

Close enough that I could become one of those that Bay and Creek hunts.

 

[bzzt]

 

Too much.

 

[bzzt]

 

_ What does this have to do with the incident? _

It doesn’t.

Not exactly.

It has to do with her. 

 

[bzzt] 

 

I met Keisha in June. 

She’s not a June person. 

I haven’t meant anyone that is. 

You look like a March.

 

[bzzt]

 

I think she used to be able to go to the other side. 

When we first met I could feel it, the other side clinging to her, the sense that America wasn’t as picture perfect as the media would like us to believe. 

She knew it. I knew that she knew it in that instant where we met.

I just didn’t know how to ask.

You can’t exactly ask if someone has been to the other side. 

She didn’t work for us. I knew that. 

It was back when you were either with us or against us. 

We’d just lost that whole city out in the desert. 

 

[bzzt]

 

Sector 2.02

Unit Code Nu.

 

[bzzt]

 

I had stopped in for a cup of coffee at some cafe. 

Not an important one.

Not one of ours.

Just a place people got coffee.

I would have forgotten it a moment later.

Except.

She was there. 

A secretary, on a coffee run for her boss.

She was meant for so much more than that.

Our eyes met and I just knew. 

I couldn’t let her slip away in that moment. 

 

[bzzt]

 

At first I think I intended to recruit her.

At least, this is what I told myself.

It wasn’t true.

Even if she had been able to cross over as easily as I can.

I don’t think I would have been able to just let her be another agent.

Someone I recruited to meet a quota.

 

[bzzt]

 

I feel in love.

I got married. 

My family came. 

It was the first time I’d seen my mother in years.

 

[bzzt]

 

Too much.

 

[bzzt]

 

I think it’s the anxiety.

So lost in her own head that she can’t reach the other side anymore. 

She doesn’t even like to leave the house. 

 

[bzzt]

 

I took her on this road trip once.

She was so caught up in her head, that I thought maybe taking her out of it. 

To a place that belong to people like us. 

That it would be easier for us to connect. 

I was in love with her at this point. I’ve been in love with her since that moment we met in the cafe, but this was different. 

I wanted to love all of her. 

To be able to tell the truth about what I do for a living. 

I had thought that would be the moment.

In a hotel that didn’t make any sense, but then there’d been a phone call and I’d lost my chance. 

She was gone the moment I came back.

But not in the right way.

 

[bzzt]

 

That’d been the Georgia Incident. 

Sector 23.118. 

Unit Code Sigma.

 

[bzzt]

 

_ This Keisha [Last Name Retracted] you’re talking about- _

My wife.

_ Yes.  _

_ Employee Number: 3394040 _ .

Yes. 

That’s her. 

You know that.

_ We just need to be clear for the record. _

 

[bzzt]

 

I don’t think she remembered how until I was gone. 

Maybe she still doesn’t entirely remember. 

I’ve heard the recordings. 

You’ve heard the recordings.

_ They are official record, Agent [Last Name Retracted], Property of Bay and Creek. _

I know.

Believe me.

I know.

 

[bzzt]

 

I don’t think - If she remembered she would be so surprised. 

 

[bzzt]

 

Looking at it from the outside.

She has the aptitude to be an agent.

Maybe not the best foundation, but we could work with that.

Couldn’t we?

 

[bzzt] 

 

_ The Incident, Agent [Last Name Retracted], please try to remain on topic. _

 

[bzzt]

 

I called you as soon as I realized that I couldn’t stop her.

If you had let me act sooner - we all heard the recordings - 

Maybe I could have.

Even they heard the recordings. 

_ It was a matter of no interference. _

_ You are aware of our policies. _

_ Policies in which you violated _ .

 

[bzzt]

 

They came after her. 

You couldn’t expect me to -

The reason I went underground in the first place was to protect Keisha. 

Letting her drive a truck isn’t -

She’s not like us.

_ Agent [Last Name Retracted] as you previously pointed out -  _

Just because she can sometimes see the other side, doesn’t make her like us. 

Keisha was supposed to be protected. 

That was our deal.

 

[bzzt]

 

It didn’t change anything. 

 

[bzzt]

 

I thought I almost lost her. 

Do you know what that’s like?

If our agents had been a second later.

 

[bzzt] 

 

I’m not sure what it is you expect me to say.

I violated protocol. 

I don’t regret it. 

_ Even if your interference didn’t change anything _ . 

I got to see her again. 

That makes it worth it. 

 

[bzzt] 

 

Suspend me. 

I don’t care anymore.

Let me go home.

 

[bzzt]

 

_ You know that’s never going to be an option, Agent [Last Name Retracted] _ .


End file.
